


She Loves to Be One of the Girls

by libraralien



Category: The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Drug Use, F/F, Prom, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 13:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11209098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libraralien/pseuds/libraralien
Summary: Allison and Claire have prom night misadventures.





	She Loves to Be One of the Girls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



> Thanks to [yungdreams](http://archiveofourown.org/users/yungdreams) for beta-ing!

As it had turned out, come Monday after their detention together, it was true neither that they were all friends now, nor that they all went their separate ways. They all variously made some attempts to be friends, with varying levels of success. Claire and Andrew were already in similar social circles, but started spending more time together, Claire and Bender continued to see each other, Allison and Andrew hung out (unclear if they were dating or friends), Brian and Allison often ate lunch together. As for Claire and Allison, they had hung out a few times but it had been awkward, both unclear on what they should do or say with each other. All of them were trying. Claire especially seemed like she was trying to prove something to herself, and went out of her way to try to get everybody to be friends with one another. 

So it wasn’t surprising to Allison when one day at lunch Claire sat herself purposefully across from her at lunch and asked Allison if she was going to prom.

Allison eyed her warily. “No,” she said, offering no elaboration.

“Not even with Andy?”

“He’s going with a bunch of his wrestling team friends. They all have dates. He’s going with some nice looking girl, keeping up appearances. I don’t care though, I told him I wasn’t going and didn’t want to.”

Claire sighed, “Why not, Allison? I know you love dancing, I’ve seen you!”

“It’s just too much,” Allison admitted, “I wouldn’t dance right. Or dress right. Or act right. And I don’t have a car or anything and my parents wouldn’t take me. So...whatever.”

“Oh come on Allison, I’ll lend you a dress and do your makeup and everything. And I have a license and my parents are out of town and left me a car to use. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Aren’t you going with Bender?”

Claire hesitated. She was, but he seemed even more uneasy about the whole thing than Allison. She wanted somebody else to come along to break up some of the tension, but she didn’t want to tell Allison that and make her feel like Claire was using her.

“I just want you to come, Allison. Plenty of people go in groups and I just think you would end up having fun and like, I’m trying to be nicer.”

“I don’t want to come...if it’s a pity thing,” Allison said slowly.

“It isn’t, I swear it.”

“Ok, but...only if you do my makeup and pick out my outfit,” Allison said quickly.

“I don’t get it,” Claire said exasperatedly, “The few times we hang out, you ask me to dress you up and do your makeup, I even give you makeup to take home, but I never see you wear anything other than your normal eyeliner. I don’t mind, I mean, it’s always stuff I don’t use anymore anyway, but I don’t get it.”

“I like the feeling of transformation each time. I’m like David Bowie,” Allison said, eyes glowing.

“You feel like wearing a new lipstick makes you like David Bowie?”

“Yeah,” said Allison, grinning, “A different me each time. And besides, I never feel like I do it right when I do it on my own.”

The last part Claire could buy, she had seen Allison attempting to apply make up before. 

As promised, Claire did lend Allison a dress. It was dark grey and shiny and floor length and held up by spaghetti straps. Allison didn’t seem thrilled about it, but agreed to wear it. She told Claire she looked like a dessert in her dress, which was big and frothy and pink; a princess dress if ever there was one. Claire hated to lean into the princess thing that both Allison and Bender teased her over, but what could she say, pink suited her. 

She did both her own and Allison’s hair and makeup before prom, blowdrying Allison’s bangs out of her face and carefully applying a flattering plum lipstick onto her.

She wouldn’t admit it, Allison liked when Claire did her makeup. She liked feeling transformed, but also she liked the feeling of being made into something more beautiful underneath Claire’s hands. 

“I would have thought you would wanted a limo, how come you’re driving?” Allison asked, as she fussed with her dress straps.

Claire, not pausing from carefully applying mascara, said, “Well, yeah, but Bender wouldn’t agree to anything too over the top. I mean, I think he’s kinda uncomfortable with the whole thing still, but I mean, I have a car to myself all weekend instead, and in some ways that’s kinda cooler than the limo thing. Besides, I’m not going with a large group, so like, whatever.”  


Allison snorted. Claire clearly had wanted to do a limo, and was now justifying the decision more to herself than to Allison.

When they picked up Bender, he was in a rented suit that was nice enough that Claire had definitely paid for it, and Allison had never seen a man more out of his element. For all his swagger and confidence, he was obviously out of place and even more obviously did not want to be doing this. Claire was extra sweet and cooed over how nice he looked.

It had seemed like things were going to be ok when they go to the prom, where Bender quickly shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, more comfortable in an outfit somehow altered.

Allison was overwhelmed until she just went and started dancing, where she could mainly block out whatever and whoever was around her and enjoy herself. She and Claire danced together, she found Andy and they danced around for a bit. It was a pretty good time, until there was an unusually long pause between songs, and some sort of obscene metal music blasted throughout the room. She burst out laughing. It must have been Bender, she knew it. The song stopped abruptly after about thirty seconds. By the time she made it over to the DJ area, Bender was already squaring off with several school officials. Claire was standing off to the side making her disdainful and angry face, where she was clearly about to cry, but was trying to look pissed instead.

Claire tried to argue on his behalf, but pretty much every teacher and school official already knew Bender and had either been waiting for him to break any rule so they could kick him out, or knew he would only probably do worse if he stayed and were not inclined to be forgiving.

Claire considered offering to drive him home, but she knew he lived close enough that he could walk home fine and at any rate, he seemed almost relieved to be kicked out. She could tell she was ugly crying now, could feel the mascara running down her face as tears spilled, could feel her face going puffy and pink. She could also tell that she was being unreasonable, but that didn’t make her feel less upset. She was watching her evening slip away from her.

“Hey,” Allison said, grabbing her arm, “Let’s just get out of here. You are only going to get more upset. Why don’t we just drive around a bit and we can come back in like an hour. People won’t all be looking at you and we can fix your makeup if you want.”

Claire agreed. As she headed out to her car Allison said, “Wait….I’ll be right back. Just wait for me in the car!” and ran off before Claire could answer. 

She ran back to the car looking conspiratorial, but didn’t say anything as Claire pulled out of the parking lot and began driving aimlessly around town, trying to cool off and stop sniffling.

She realized Allison was staring at her with that grin, where she bites her bottom lip, like she’s holding in a secret.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Claire snipped, “What is it?”

Silently, Allison reached in her purse and pulled out a crumpled, rolled up brown paper bag. Even if she didn’t recognize it, she would have been able to identify it by the smell.

“Is that Bender’s fucking dope?”

Allison laughed, “Yeah,” she said, clearly delighted.

Claire stared resolutely at the road. “He’s gonna fucking kill you. No, he’s gonna fucking kill me because he’s going to think it was me.”

“Relax,” Allison said, putting it back in her bag without taking her eyes off Claire, “I know for a fact he doesn’t show up to school on Mondays before third period, I’ll put it back. He probably won’t even notice any is missing. He’s not very observant. I still have his knife.”

“What are we gonna do with it? I don’t have anything to smoke it out of.”

“Let’s go to a convenience store, I’ll buy some rolling papers and a lighter...and tobacco so nobody is too suspicious. I’m old enough.”

Claire was feeling impulsive enough to go along with it. What the hell was she doing, she thought as Allison was in the convenience store. It was fine, they would smoke, she would be in a better mood, they would drive around a bit and then head back to the prom. It was still early in the evening.

Allison slid back in the car. “Ok, now let’s go somewhere we won’t get caught.”

Claire drove to a fairly quiet park a bit outside of town, which seemed like a safe bet. Allison began skillfully rolling a joint on her dashboard.

“How do you know how to do that? Do you smoke a lot?”

“It’s good to have skills,” she replied, which answered exactly none of Claire’s questions. 

Claire was vaguely worried about smoking in her dad’s car, but she figured she had a few days to blast it with a fan and an air freshener, so probably it would be fine. Also, wasn’t prom night the night to not worry about consequences? Both of them managed to work up tremendous coughing fits trying to smoke the joint like they knew what they were doing, but by the end of the joint they were both sufficiently stoned.

Claire leaned her head back against the headrest. Everything was swimming and Allison was laughing to herself at sometime. Claire thought about how she liked Allison’s laugh. She usually would start laughing by reluctantly smiling, glancing around warily to make sure she was not the butt of a joke, before opening her mouth and slowly falling into big ugly laughs. It was so genuine that Claire felt a satisfaction whenever she could elicit them out of Allison. 

She started giggling herself just from the infectiousness of it, before she turned to Allison and said, “I like, hardly know anything about you Allison. If I ask you questions tonight, will you promise to tell the truth? I do want to know, but I know you lie so much.”

Allison looked like she was weighing the pros and cons of the proposal. “Ok, yeah. Anything you ask, I’ll tell the truth. But you have to do the same.”

“Ok, yeah, that’s fair. So, like, what’s your family like? I’ve never been to your house. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I have a sister, yeah.”

“Really? Does she go to our school?”

“No. She’s ten.”

“Wow, a lot younger.”

“Yeah,” Allison agreed, “My parents had here when they realized I was going to be crazy forever and there was nothing they could do to fix me. So they just...had another kid and started over and did their best to forget me.”

Claire didn’t know how to respond. “That’s really fucked up, Allison, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s ok, I mean, they make sure I’m fed. Pay for my psychiatrist. Nothing they do is abuse or anything like that. And I mean, I’m nineteen anyway, so I don’t think they are legally obligated to do anything for me technically.

“You’re nineteen?”

“Yeah,” Allison laughed, “I was held back in elementary school. ‘Allison lacks focus and has yet to develop socially. We recommend she repeat first grade so she had a chance to catch up to the level of her peers’....anyway it’s my turn.”

“Ok, go for it.”

“Who was your first kiss?”

Claire immediately weighed whether she was going to tell the truth. It as a common enough question that she had a practiced lie. The truth of it, was it had been at summer camp, one evening, when all the girls in her cabin were in some sort of naughty mood. It had been the same evening where one of them showed her how to apply lipstick with her boobs, holding Claire’s torso still by the arms, while she moved her head around, messily getting it mostly around her mouth. It had turned into truth or dare and she had been dared to kiss one of the other girls. It was hardly that scandalous, but Claire’s heart had fluttered, and she had become fixated on the girl who had kissed her for the rest of summer camp. 

“Um, it was during a game of truth or dare in like middle school. I don’t remember who it was,” Claire said, guilty for lying after promising not to.

“Uh-huh,” Allison said, clearly not quite buying it. Allison was unusually good at telling when somebody was lying, probably because she lied so much herself.

“Ok, ok, my turn,” Claire said, before Allison had a chance to question her about it, “Who was your first crush?” 

“Mr. Spock,” Allison said with no hesitation.

“No, like, a real person.”

“David Bowie.”

“No, no, like a person you knew.” 

Allison looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “My middle school art teacher, Ms. Kowalski. She was really nice to me and encouraged me to keep drawing and she took a million smoke breaks so she always smelled like cigarettes.”

Normally Claire would have been surprised, but she was honestly too stoned to feel shock. Instead she just smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

“That’s just great, yanno, that your first crush was on somebody nice to you. You sound like you took it well. Liking a woman, I mean.”

Allison smiled, “I guess at that point I already knew I had no chance of really fitting in, so it was no big deal.”

“How come you never told me?”

“We’ve been friends for six weeks. And even then friends is generous.”

“That’s really rude, Allison.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry; we are friends. And it wasn’t a secret. You just never asked until now. Nobody ever has.”

“I’m the first person you’ve ever told that you like girls?”

“No, I told my therapist. He thought it was fine. Maybe he thought it was just another symptom of my crazy, but if he did, he didn’t say anything. It’s not like a big deal or anything. Once I can get out of here, out of this town, I’ll go someplace nobody will care. I could go to San Francisco. Let’s just drive around some before we go back to the prom? We can pretend we’re escaping.”

Claire was getting anxious just sitting in a parked car like they had been anyway, so she started the car and started driving. They turned the radio on and rolled the windows down. It was starting to get dark, but Claire stayed no more than a few towns over from their own, so she knew she would be able to get back fine. 

Neither of them said anything much for ages. They sang along to the radio, or suggested turns to take, but that was it. It was like if they started talking, one of them would bring up that they should probably head back soon if they wanted to get back to the prom, but if neither of them said anything, they could both just pretend they had forgotten. Before Claire knew it, it was well past midnight. Prom would probably be over by the time they got home if they turned around now. Almost relieved, Claire felt like she could say something now.

“I’m hungry,” Claire said suddenly. “Let’s turn around and drive home.”

“No, let’s just drive around the next town we see. Probably we can find a 24-hour diner.”

Claire was in a better mood than she had been earlier, but still kind of wanted the whole mess of a night to be over. But she was very hungry, and she could get coffee at a diner before driving home, so she agreed.

They found a diner, empty except for the cook and waitress. It was muggy in the diner and under the harsh artificial lighting Claire checked herself in her compact mirror and could see how rough both she and Allison were looking. Both of their hair had been messed up from driving with the windows open, make up largely worn off, slightly sweaty, and overall tired. They ate mostly in silence, both still slightly stoned and focusing their entire attention on shoving food into their mouths.

“I know you don’t give a shit because you never cared about prom to begin with, so it didn’t matter to you that your night got ruined” Claire said, breaking the silence, causing Allison to look up from pouring what looked like roughly a fourth a cup of sugar into her mug of coffee, “but like, I’ve fantasized about prom since I was in middle school, and tonight I felt like all that fantasy got taken away from me,” Claire hesitated, picking at the remains of her pancakes, “But...I still had a good time. I’m glad I could spend the evening with you Allison,” said Claire.

“How does your prom go in your fantasies?”

“Well, in my fantasies, you know, me and whatever guy I had a crush on at the time, we would go out for dinner, we would look great together, we would see all our friends, get drunk secretly...get crowned prom queen, then go to his place or a hotel or something and make love.”

Allison snorted. “‘Make love’?” she repeated back in a voice suggesting she found the term laughable. “Prom queen drunk and in a hotel room? That’s called ‘Getting Fucked.’”

Claire weighed arguing with her or ignoring it. Allison could get really mean at the drop of a hat if she felt like, but she could switch back to nice quickly too. Claire didn’t think she even realized when she was being mean.

“Ok, maybe not make love, but at least a romantic kiss at the end of the night.”

Allison smiled in the way that she did like she was enjoying some private joke with herself, and scooted out of her side of the booth, abandoning the remains of her hash-browns that she was slowly arranging into a spiral on her plate, and sidled up to Claire. This close she could see Allison’s messy hair, her bangs long since flopped down onto her face, clinging to the sweat on her forehead, her smudged makeup; she was sure hers was in a similar state.

Claire glanced around nervously. There was hardly anybody else in the diner. Their waitress was taking a smoke break outside, the cook nowhere to be seen. Not as if anybody knew who either of them were here anyway. Allison purposefully put her hands out to grab Claire’s, holding them tensely for a moment before leaning slowly forward, as if she moved slow enough she wouldn’t scare Claire off. When their lips just barely touched, both of them leaned forward into it, holding a slow, gentle kiss. When they broke apart far enough to make eye contact, Allison kept holding on to Claire’s hands. 

To Claire, the entire night already felt so surreal, that this didn’t even feel so strange. She was so exhausted that she both wanted to go home and sleep forever, and for the evening to never end. It felt like 3 A.M. could stretch on forever and the sun would never rise. 

“There you go, princess, romantic fantasy fulfilled,” Allison said, with a small smile, “So, what happens to the two of us on Monday?”


End file.
